BMW Will Race In The M6

Published on October 7, 2014 in Racing by Frédérick Boucher-Gaulin
BMW M6 GT3

BMW has been using the Z4 Roadster in their GT3 programs since 2010. While it may have been a success overall, it is now time to modernize their race cars.

In racing, lightness is your ally: the lighter your car is, the more nimble it will be. This is why their next ride of choice will be the… BMW M6?

This doesn’t seem like a very logical choice, but it does have its merits: First of all, the GT3 Class has been accepting larger and larger vehicles in the last few years, like the Bentley Continental GT3-R (which has enjoyed tremendous success so far). With the advances in weight reduction, using a larger chassis is possible, and it enables the manufacturer to use a bigger engine: for the M6 GT3, BMW will fit a race-spec twin-turbo 4.4L V8 under the hood. This is a major step-up from the outgoing Z4, which only had a normally aspirated V8.

The new M6 GT3 should hit the tarmac sometime before the end of 2015, and it will contend with Corvette C7.Rs, Porsche 911 RSRs and even privately-owned BMW Z4 GT3s for the 2016 championship.